The present invention relates to electric connectors and, more particularly, to such an electric connector, which comprises a socket shell mounted inside a housing to hold a terminal holder and a set of terminals in the terminal holder, and light emitting means installed in the rear side of the socket shell and adapted to emit light through the visible front side of the socket shell to indicate operation of the electric connector.
Various electric connectors for data transmission between a computer and the telephone line are well known. However, regular electric connectors for this purpose have no indicator means to indicate normal function during operation. There are also known electric connectors with indicator lights. These electric connectors with indicator lights include three types, namely, the first type in which light emitting diodes are directly installed in the visible front side of the shell; the second type in which light emitting diodes are mounted on the inside and light guide means is provided to guide light from the light emitting diodes to the visible front side (see FIGS. 5 and 6); the third type in which light emitting diodes are directly welded to a circuit board at the bottom of the housing and light guide means is provided to guide light from the light emitting diodes to the visible front side of the electric connector (see FIGS. 7 and 8). These three types of electric connectors still have drawbacks.
1. According to the first type, the installation procedure of the light emitting diodes is complicated. When mounted in the housing, the pins of the light emitting diodes must be welded to respective contacts of the circuit board. Because there is a distance between the light emitting diodes and the circuit board, the pins of the light emitting diodes must be extended.
2. According to the second type, the use of light guide means greatly increases the manufacturing cost, and much light energy is lost when transmitted through the light guide means to the visible front side.
3. According to the third type, the use light guide means greatly increases the manufacturing cost, and much light energy is lost when transmitted through the light guide means to the visible front side.